Thursday, July 29, 2004

The days of anonymously puffing your own books on Amazon.com, or putting the critical knife into rivals are over.

As Media Guardian reports (free registration required), Amazon has begun a new system, Real Names, which requires reviewers to provide their credit card details before posting a comment.

The change, which was quietly introduced earlier this month, is intended to put an end to authors and publishers anonymously showering their own books with praise while trashing the work of their rivals. An Amazon spokeswoman said: "This is the latest step in an ongoing effort to continually improve the content of the site."

Not that any Writers' Guild member would ever have been involved in such things....

We've redesigned our main website to bring together all our content at www.writersguild.org.uk - come on over and take a look.

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Members get access to free legal advice, as well as weekly information bulletins, a quarterly magazine and regular events. The Guild negotiates minimum terms agreements to ensure that writers are fairly paid.